Hermana Juli Ann Jensen

Familia y Amigos,

So I've got some news for you all! I already have a new companion! Hermana Orton got transfered to Puerreydon, which we were very surprised about. We only got to be together for one transfer. It was a great transfer together though, and I am very grateful for the time that we had together. She has such a love for the people and this work, and her energy is contagious!!

My new companion arrived this morning at about 5:30am. Her name is Hermana Juli Ann Jensen, and she's from Ceder City, Utah! She is such a hoot! En serio. She makes me laugh so much, and I am already so excited to serve with her. She has been in Argentina for eight-ish months now, and speaks Castellano well. I am excited for what the Lord has in store for the two of us here in Puerto.

It ended up being an eventful week, and again we saw many miracles! Last Saturday we passed by a recent convert. One of her friends happened to be at her house, so we invited him to church! And he went! Then he just happened to sit by our ward mission leader during sacrament meeting--who asked him if he would listen to the missionaries, read the Book of Mormon, and go to church every Sunday for a month to see if he needed to be baptized. And guess what?! He said he would! We met with him a few days later to teach lesson one, and he now has a baptismal date. :)

A few days later we had a prompting to pass by another recent convert, who is now less-active. We passed by about 10 times this past transfer and they were never home. But this time they finally were! They let us right in and it turns out that their home teachers were over just about to start sharing their message. They invited us to join, and about one minute later a friend of their daughter walked in. The home teacher then transitioned the message into the first discussion and asked the girl if she would be interested in listening to the missionaries. We were absolutely shocked! Two investigators in one week--all prepared by the ward members! I truly am so blessed to be able to serve here in Puerto. I love it!

General Conference this weekend was awesome, wasn't it? Man, I love listening to the prophet's voice! Luckily I got to listen to 3 of the 4 sessions in English, along with about 20 other Elders who serve here in Mar del Plata. The last session I watched in the home of our ward missionary. I understood the general idea of the talks in that session...but definitely not every word! It was neat because even though I didn't understand everything, that was probably my favorite session! It gave me a chance to sincerely listen to the Holy Ghost, to what I needed to learn and do from each talk to be able to serve my brothers and sisters in Argentina.

I loved thinking during conference that my family and friends were all listening to the same messages at the same time! We are so blessed to have the technology to listen to conference in many languages and in many countries all over the world! The church is true in every part of the world! I am so grateful for the chance that we have every six months to all join together to be uplifted and hear a prophet's voice. Remember what you learned during conference. Remember the promptings you had during conference. Now is the time to act on them!

I love you all!
-Hermana Vawdrey

Ps. I'm sorry, I had a ton of pictures I wanted to send today but the computer I'm at doesn't have a USB port :( Next week!

Who the Lord calls, he QUALIFIES!

Hola!!

Ahora ya es el último semana de mi qinto traslado! ¡No puedo creer! We had another great week. The other day we were walking to our next appointment when we ran into a "Rolo" (R, a recent convert--15ish years old). He told us that his dad was home and that we could stop by if we wanted. Rolo is the only member in his family so we decided that we'd take him up on his offer! We ended up having a really great lesson with his dad and his twin sisters, and a few days later when we had another lesson with them they told us that they had been reading the scriptures together! We were so excited, we hadn't even told them to do that! Since Rolo is a member they already had a basic idea of the beliefs of our church, so we had a brief first lesson with them and all three of them agreed to be baptized! We are really excited for them. The parents recently got divorced and are going through a tough time financially, so we know the gospel is just the thing they need to have more unity and happiness in their family.

Another day this week Hermana Orton and I were out working. The day previous we noticed that we needed to plan something else to do for about an hour from 11:00-12:00pm, so in order to use the Lord's time efficiently, so chose a street to knock doors. So we started knocking doors, and this one house with a big gate out front really stood out. We knocked it (clapped) and a man came out who wasn't very nice, but he went and got his 16-year-old son. It turns out that his son is a member! He is a less active because he just moved to Puerto and never found out what time and where church was. We were able to tell him all of that and invited him to play fútbol with the youth that week. As we were leaving his house we realized we weren't even on the right street! We got a pretty good laugh. Yet that experience taught me that we aren't perfect, but "who the Lord calls, he qualifies." Yeah, we weren't on the right street, but we were still in the right place at the right time so that we could find that boy!

Puerto is starting to get pretty cold. I am now remembering how spoiled I was to have two summers in a row!

I hope you all are doing well! Enjoy some March Madness for me! ;)

-Hermana Vawdrey

Who the Lord calls, He qualifies!

Hello Hello!

Sorry for the scare, we had Zone Conference yesterday so we had to switch our Internet time to today. But all is well! It was a busy week. Things are still going great with the ward missionaries. We have five of them that we work with regularly, and they are awesome! This week we did divisiones with them three times, and to be completely honest? It's absolutely terrifying! I have to be senior companion during all that and I still feel like a brand new missionary. I'm learning though how much trust the Lord has in me and how much potential He has for me to grow and feel more comfortable to teach. And to teach in a foreign language. In the blessing that our Ward mission leader gave me the other week he promised me that the gift of tongues would come in los momentos difíciles. Well...those divisions are "difficult moments" and I can bear testimony that the gift of tongues is always present. So cool. Who the Lord calls, He qualifies!

S and S are two of the people we are teaching right now. They are great! They aren't married, have a six-year-old daughter, and they both work two jobs. They are super busy, but they really look forward to the time with "las misioneras." The other day we had a lesson with them and we asked S (husband) to say the prayer. He started it: "Nuestro Padre Celestial..." His "wife" said all the stuff in the middle, and then he ended "en el nombre de JesuCristo, Amen." haha We had a good laugh after. Obviously we'll need to teach how to pray again. :) ha But at least they are trying! S (wife) has come to church two weeks in a row on her own now, so we are really excited for her. He still has yet to go though, so we need to work with him. We have a lot of faith that they will keep progressing towards baptism. :) Just yesterday she told us, "The first time I went to church I went because you told me to. I felt obligated! But now I want to. I know it's something that I need to do." YES! What a great "missionary paycheck" it was to hear that!

I don't have much time left, but thank you all for your support. Yo sé que Dios quiere que yo esté en Puerto-Mar del Plata en ese tiempo. Sé que el poder de la oracion es real. Podemos recibir toda la fuerze necesitamos a seguir los sursurros del Espíritu Santo. ¡Dios nos ama mucho!

Que esté bien!
-Hermana Vawdrey

All the Elders that were in my travel group to Argentina

Las Hermanas en Mar del Plata

Hermana Detlefsen

Our District: Elder Galan, Elder Forbes (District Leader), y Hermana Orton

There is always a way

Wow. What a week. I don't know where to start. We honestly had the lowest lows and the highest highs. I learned so much, and my testimony and my desire to work harder is so much stronger! That's life though, right?

First of all, things are unfortunately a little rocky with all of our investigators right now. Hermana Orton and I were getting a little discouraged at one point because of how hard we are working and how little of a reward/success we are seeing. We know logically that every bit of missionary work is important even if you don't immediately see results...but sometimes it's hard to really remember that. Satan is so good at making us feel discouraged, it's not even funny.

One of our ward missionaries had a day like this too this week, and we learned a lot with him. I was reviewing lesson two one day--the Plan of Salvation so that I could be ready to teach it to one of our investigators, and I re-learned something really important. When we came to the earth we passed through the veil, which means we forgot a lot of things about our pre-earth life. We lost a lot of our perspective, and we are now here to learn again what the purpose of life is. But what helped me so much is that Satan didn't have to pass through the veil. That's why he's so good at making us feel discouraged sometimes, because he knows just what to do, and just what thoughts to put into our mind so that we feel inadequate. Yet! The gospel is a gospel of hope because the Lord sent us to Earth to have success! The Lord called me to the Bahía Blanca mission to have success! The Lord gave all of you the challenges and trials that you have because he believes in you and your strengths, and knows that you will have success! I love it. With the gospel there is always a way.

Our ward mission leader gave both Hermana Orton and I a blessing this week. It was really neat to hear in Castellano what my Heavenly Father specifically wanted me to hear in that exact moment. I know he knows me personally, better than I know myself! He knows where I am, what my questions and concerns are, he hears my prayers, and he blesses me every day! All I have to do is look for the little blessings!

One of the recent converts in our ward got really sick this week. In all honestly, I'm not really sure what exactly happened, but she had to go to the hospital for some heart condition, and then the rest of the week she has been home pretty much on bed rest. She and her husband are some of the humblest people I have met. They live in what the call here: ¨the Villa." It's an area of old train tracks where the more poor people scramble anything they can find to try to build a house. Their home is so simple. (It'd probably fit in our garage...with room to spare!) They have dirt floors, a door that stays shut only when tied with rope, a hose for their kitchen sink, a tiny little table, and random little odds and ends that they have probably found in abandoned houses or in the street. Yet they have both the picture of Christ and a picture of the temple that the missionaries gave them when they were baptized. :) It's amazing how strong the spirit is in their home. We went by to visit G a couple times, and I am humbled every time to see how much more "rich" they are now that they have the gospel. All the little material worldly things really don't matter!

Thank you everyone for your support! I hope you're all doing well!
-Hermana Vawdrey

After eating our Valentine's ring pops! :)

Mire, we found a restaurant called La Restauración! We HAD to take a picture.

The famous calendar

The beach!

The famous spot on the pier! Mar del Plata!

The beach!

The famous lobo statues

Mi compa y yo

One of our ward missionaries

 

A yummy pizza we ate with our ward missionary

A view from our roof

Another view from our roof

Barrio Puerto es buenísimo!

It's been an eventful week! In ways that we hadn't planned...but it was good! I'm probably going to say this every week, but I am so glad and excited to be companions with Hermana Orton. She is great. This week she celebrated her one year mark in her mission! We celebrated with Oreos and peanut butter--her all time favorite foods. I think she's got me hooked.

Happy birthday, Hna Orton!

Oreos and Peanut Butter. Mmm!

We've been teaching this cute little boy lately. He's eight, and is the cutest thing ever. His parents aren't members and really don't want to have anything to do with the church, but they live in an apartment behind his grandma's house, who is a member...so that's how we got the reference to start teaching him. He has already been to church several times, so when we had our first lesson with him he was practically teaching us! So awesome! We got to the part about Joseph Smith, and he was like "Yeah, I already know about him. He was a prophet!" haha And then we started talking about the Book of Mormon, and he was like "Yeah, I know. El Libro de Mormón es verdadero!" He's practically teaching us! It's awesome! We're just praying that his parents will still let him keep preparing himself for baptism.

The ward missionaries have been helping us a lot, and it's great! They come with us to lessons almost every day, and it is so fun to see them bear their testimony and get a love for missionary work. Our ward missionary leader is dynamite too. Barrio Puerto es buenísimo!

Barrio Puerto ward missionaries

This week was interesting because we didn't necessarily find very many new investigators like we had planned...but we found several recent converts that seemed to have "dropped off the face of the earth!" There were three of them that no one has able to find for months, yet we were able to find all of them this week! It was interesting to see everything fall into place because at first we were a little discouraged that we were putting too much thought and effort into following the Spirit to plan where we needed to be to find new investigators...but really the Lord had something different in mind for us this week. He needed us to help strengthen His other children right now. It was humbling to see that even though we weren't finding new investigators, we were still where we needed to be, at the right time, so that we could help the Lord with His work. :)

On Friday we had an esfuerzo in our area. This is where our District Leader and our Zone Leaders came to our area for a few hours to help us find new investigators. They weren't able to find new investigators like we had originally planned, yet it was a little comforting that it's not just us that have trouble finding nuevos! But we're all learning together that all missionary work is important to the Lord. This area is where I specifically need to be right now and I have experiences that remind me of this each and every day. :)

Amigos, la iglesia es verdadero! No tengo ninguna duda que la iglesia es la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días. ¡Él vive, y va a venir otra vez!

Su Misionerita,
-Hermana Vawdrey

We wake up to a sunrise like this every morning. :) HERMOSO!! 

This morning!!

20 minutes later. haha

We got our Valentine's day package! Thanks!

You know you're a sister missionary when you have weird tan lines
on your feet... (These are after they have faded for 2 months too!)

New mission president announced!

Here's a letter Brittni's current mission president sent out to the missionaries of the Bahia Blanca mission.

Queridos Élderes y Hermanas de la Gran Misión Bahia Blanca:

Es grato para mí anunciarles quien será su nuevo Presidente de Misión, ahora es momento de que mantengamos la visión en bautizar cada semana para recibirle de la mejor manera. Preparémonos espiritualmente y sigamos trabajando con diligencia en esta gran obra.

Manuel Parreño, 53, fue llamado para presidir la Misión Argentina Bahía Blanca. Está casado con María Magdalena Piñol de Parreño. Asisten al Barrio Elche 1 de la Estaca España Elche. El hermano Parreño es 1° Consejero del Obispado, también sirvió como Presidente de Estaca y Distrito, consejero de la Misión Barcelona España, presidente de rama, y fue misionero de la Misión Barcelona España. Trabaja para el Sistema Educativo de la Iglesia como Coordinador. Nació en Elche, España.

La Hermana Parreño ha servido recientemente como Maestra de la Escuela dominical, misionera de barrio, consejera en la Presidencia de Mujeres Jóvenes de Estaca y como maestra de seminario. Nació en Elche, España.

Con amor en Cristo.
Presidente Jorge Detlefsen

And now in English (this is Brittni's dad testing out his rusty Spanish skills)...

Dear Elders and Sisters of the Great Bahía Blanca Mission:

It's exciting to announce who will be your new Mission President, and now is the time where we maintain the vision and baptize each week so that we receive him the best way we can. Let's prepare ourselves spiritually and continue to work diligently in this great work.

Manuel Parreño, 53, was called to preside over the Argentina Bahía Blanca Mission. He is married to María Magdalena Piñol de Parreño. They attend the Elche 1st Ward in the Elche Spain Stake. Brother Parreño is the First Counselor in the bishopric, and has also served as Stake and District President, counselor in the Spain Barcelona Mission, Branch President, and served as a missionary in the Spain Barcelona Mission. He works for the Educational System of the Church as a Coordinator. He was born in Elche, Spain.

Sister Parreño has served most recently as a Sunday School Teacher, Ward Missionary, counselor in the Stake Young Womens Presidency, and as a Seminary teacher. She was born in Elche, Spain.

With love in Christ.
President Jorge Detlefsen

Pictures will be posted as they become available.

The best kept secret of the Church

Hello Hello!

I'm trying to get used to living in a city again. I've gotta tell you...it's still very strange to come from a little pueblito to go to una ciudad gigante. Here in Mar del Plata there are paved streets! Street lights! People out during the siesta! Weird! haha But I am enjoying it. I really feel like this is where the Lord wants me to be right now, and there is nothing more reassuring than that. On top of that, I'm loving the change.

Yesterday I seriously felt like I was in a dream! The ward here is so strong, and the members are great. They are very friendly, and we have lunches with members pretty much every day except for P-day. Whoot! What I am most excited about, however, are the ward missionaries. We have about five of them, all of which are youth who are preparing to go on missions. It's awesome to see their excitement. We are going to start having a "companionship study" with them each week and practice teaching the lessons. Then we are going to start going out on divisions with them and allow them to help find and teach  investigators! These kids have such powerful testimonies. I am so excited to work with them.

Las Hermanas con Ward Missionaries

The young women in the ward had their New Beginnings program this week that we got to help out a little bit. From what I understood, they had the theme of how modesty never goes out of fashion. All of the Laurels got all dressed up in old wedding dresses and had a little modesty fashion show. The Priests and Teachers got all dressed up and escorted them around. So cute.

Missionary work is going well! We've been able to set several baptismal dates and there seems to be a lot of potential in this area. My Castellano is really coming along! I don't stutter as much (ha thank goodness) and I daily surprise myself with what I can say with the help of the Holy Ghost! I'm realizing more and more every day that a mission is the best kept secret of the church. You learn so much, you grow so much, and you get to help and serve your brothers and sisters all day, every day!

I love you all,

-Hermana Vawdrey

!Mar del Plata--Barrio PUERTO!

!Hola Hola!

Big news! I got transferred!! I am now in Mar del Plata--Barrio Puerto. It's a big city, so it's quite the change from where I was in little Pigüé. But I can't tell you how excited I am to be here! Everyone says this is "the ward" (yes WARD...not branch) to be in because it is so strong. Our area is huge. There is a lot of missionary support, so we get invited to lunches a lot. :) And I hear that there are so many members that it is to the point where they need to split the ward soon! I arrived here just last night after a really long 8-hour bus ride...alone. The zone leaders and my companion were in the terminal to pick me up luckily, so it wasn't scary.

My companion's name is Hermana Corinne Orton, from Provo Utah! She is full of energy and lots of ánimo por la obra misional. We haven't even been together for more that 24 hours yet...but I really think we're going to get along great. She seems to be a hard worker, very organized, diligent, and has a great love for our brothers and sisters here in Argentina.

Hermanas Orton y Vawdrey en Mar del Pata (Barrio Puerto)

Since I am now on the other half of the mission, I have a chance to serve with many of the missionaries that I haven't met yet. I met my district leader and zone leaders yesterday and was impressed by their support and ánimo to have me here in Puerto.

Right after Internet time we've got a cita with some conversos recientes. I'm excited to get to know the area! It's currently pouring rain, and it's very humid. Yes, I am wearing my rain boots!

Ohh, other random things:

• You can see the ocean from our apartment window.

• Mar del Plata is very famous for its strong-and-extremely-stinky smell of fish and lobos (seas lions). Lovely. My comp said I'll get used to it after a few weeks... :s

• Hermana Freeman will "die" in Pigüé. She will be companions with Hermana McWhorter (my comp in the MTC!)

I have now been on my mission for 6 months! I honestly CANNOT believe it. It went by so fast. It's kinda scary because now I only have a year left...which is a long time and a short time all at once, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to dedicate another year of my life to the Lord!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines day and that you are all doing well!

Mucho amor!
-Hermana Vawdrey

Sorry, I don't have much time today so I'll attach a bunch of pictures!

Hermana Chento finally got her Visa! She left for Mexico on Jueves.

A true Argentine Gaucho (and a recent convert!)

Hermana Freeman y yo

El Campo en Pigue

A member from la rama en Pigue gave me this skirt!

Hermana Patricia (gave me the skirt and shirt on my last Sunday in Pigue)

Pigue branch members

This sweet couple faithfully had the missionaries over for lunch every week!

Una familia bien querida

Nuestro distrito: Elder Vazquez (Lider de Distrito) y
Elder Marambio (now serving in Mar del Plata as well)

Hermana Arancibia y yo

Our apartment building in Pigue
(Our apartment is the one with the window shades up)

Pigue!

Mi companera from our apartment balcony

Right before boarding the bus for Mar del Plata
(the drivers wanted to be in the picture!)

En el colectivo en camino por Mar del Plata!

Opposition in ALL Things

Familia y amigos,

Update: All of our investigators "died" this week. Either they moved, decided they weren't interested, disappeared, avoided us, or are on vacation. Pigüé has been hard because this happens almost every week. Yet, we're really learning the importance of hard work and dedication. When we give the Lord our heart He always blesses us, and even on those days when we don't have "success," we still feel of His love and we know that our desires to do our best is real success to Him.

Lately I've studied agency a lot since we have had a lot of our investigators choose to not progress. It's heartbreaking to invest so much into them, and then see them throw it all away. I'm learning how the Lord must feel when I choose to do something when I know better! Yet this is part of the Lord's plan for His children--an opposition in all things! If there wasn't an opposite to everything, we wouldn't know what true joy was! With the gospel and with this knowledge that everything has a purpose, we learn that:

"Weaknesses become strengths,
challenges become opportunities,
trials become temptations,
and adversity becomes an adventure
in the service of the Lord." 

(M. Russell Ballard, Our Search for Happiness, pg. 104)

On Friday we decided to go out to Puan (a little pueblo outside of Pigüé, that is part of our area). There actually used to be a ward out there a few years ago, but after several families moved, the ward was combined with the branch in Pigüé. It was fun to be in a different place and we enjoyed getting to know it a little bit better. It brought back lots of memories of our first few weeks here in Pigüé because we had to take the time to get a new map, get to know the members, and really start from scratch to see where to start to help the pueblo grow in the gospel again. We're looking forward to the next time we get to go out to Puan.

Next week is transfers!! Hermana Chento got her Visa and will be leaving for Mexico on Thursday! There is also talk that I could be going to another area, but we'll have to see. We find out Friday. :) I'm hoping for a change, but we'll see what the Lord has in store for me in just a few days!

Las Hermanas de Pigüé!

Celebrating Hermana Chento's birthday with ice cream

Our bulletin board

Hope all is well on the home front!
-Hermana Vawdrey

Nothing is too insignificant for the Lord to heal

Familia y Amigos,

One day this week we had another day where everything was falling through, and no one was home when they said they would be. Yet we are learning that a lot of times that just is proof that those people aren't really ready for the gospel yet, and we then have an opportunity to find someone else that is! With that attitude we just kept going and eventually we saw this guy smoking outside of his house, and decided to go talk to him. As we got closer we saw tons of old beer bottles and old cigarettes, and we wondered if he was drunk. Yet, we introduced ourselves anyway and ended up having a really powerful lesson. It turns out he lives with his brother, his cousin, and two other guys--who all work for the same construction company. They grew up going to an Evangelico church and had a good basic testimony. It was really fun to teach to their needs. We challenged them to read part of el Libro de Mormón to find out the truth for themselves. They committed to do it, and seemed sincerely hopeful to make a change in their lives. We're hoping that they will stay willing to learn more and to change their lives for the better. :)

Unfortunately on Thursday I woke up and my ankle was sore. By lunch it was getting swollen, and by night I could hardly walk on it! The swelling kept getting worse and worse and it was all discolored. Sadly I don't even have a good story because I don't even know what happened! I don't remember twisting my ankle or falling or anything. Maybe it just happened over time after walking so much? Eventually we went to the doctor to get an opinion of how to treat it and he said to rest for three days. 3 days??? Are you kidding me! I wanna work! But to make a long story short, I've been taking it easy for the past few days, got a Priesthood blessing yesterday, and today when I woke up the pain and the swelling was gone! I keep waiting for the pain to come back but it seems to be gone! It's a miracle! I have truly felt the power of the Priesthood and the power of prayer and fasting over the past few days. As a servant of the Lord I know I have work to do, and the Lord has helped my body heal so that I can keep going!

Hope all is well!
-Hermana Vawdrey